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THE MESSAGE OF JAINISM
to renounce, to observe absolute chastity, to meditate and to suffer all kinds of inconveniences and hardships. But he has, on the other hand, special instructions provided for him, as to how he should accept, within prescribed limits, pure food and other requisites of life offered to him. He has been furnished with full guidance as to how he should conduct his normal activities, such as how to walk and how to sleep, how to sit and how to speak, how to serve his fellow-ascetics and how to receive service from them. He has, moreover, explicit directions concerning how to preach and how to dispute in controversies, how to work and how to move in this world as it is, with its saints and its criminals, its laymen and women, its Hindus and Buddhists, its scholars and peasants, and its kings and beggars.
In short, he is taught how to regulate his whole bodily and mental activity in such a way as to be in constant and undisturbed peace with all that lives around him, under all conditions given. He is shown the way how to secure his own maximum personal happiness in such a manner as to contribute, even thereby, to the collective welfare of the world. In other words, he is taught how to help in making the world more perfect by increasing his own perfection.
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Thus the very secret of Jainism is contained in the three important words—Ahimsā or Non-violence, Samyama or Continence, and Tapas or Austerity. These are three tenets which the famous first stanza of the Dasavai kalika
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
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